Politics this week

Reports from Libya indicated that Colonel Muammar Qaddafi had been killed, as forces from the new ruling authorities took full control of Sirte, the colonel's home town where fighters loyal to the old regime were making a final stand. See article

Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held for more than five years by Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian group that runs Gaza, was freed in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners. The first batch of 477 of them was released this week; the remainder are expected to be let out next month. See article

More than 20 people were killed as fresh protests broke out in the Syrian city of Homs. The UN says over 3,000 people have been killed in Syria since the unrest began in March.

Dozens of people were killed in Yemen during protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who returned last month from Saudi Arabia, where he had fled in June for treatment following a bomb attack. Though he has promised to step down, he showed no sign of actually doing so.

Kenya sent tanks and armoured cars into Somalia to attack the Shabab, the Islamist militia that controls most of the southern part of Somalia except for Mogadishu, the capital. The Shabab, which threatened to respond to the incursion with terrorism in Kenya, has recently kidnapped several foreigners in the country, including a French woman, who subsequently died, and two Spanish medical workers.

In Liberia's presidential election Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the incumbent, won 44% of the vote. She will face Winston Tubman, a former diplomat, in a run-off next month.

Barack Obama said he would send 100 American military advisers and support staff to help Congolese, Central African and Ugandan troops hunt down rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army, a fanatical Ugandan group that has killed and abducted thousands of civilians in a swathe of north-western Uganda and nearby borderlands.

Activists of the world unite

Thousands of anti-capitalist protesters took to the streets in scores of cities around the world. In New York around 7,000 people joined the Occupy Wall Street camp in Manhattan, and there were similar-sized marches in Los Angeles and San Francisco. In London protesters camped outside St Paul's Cathedral. The biggest demonstrations took place in Madrid and in Rome. See article

The Obama administration ditched an insurance programme for care assistance aimed at people with severe illnesses or disabilities, which formed part of the health-care reform act. Critics of the scheme, who include a few Democrats, said their early warnings that the programme was not viable were ignored.

Barack Obama and the surviving luminaries of America's civil-rights movement attended the dedication of a memorial to Martin Luther King within the National Mall area in Washington. The dedication was postponed from August because of Hurricane Irene.

Reluctant warrior

Pakistan's army chief, Ashfaq Kayani, was reported to have said that America should think “ten times” before taking any unilateral action in the border region of North Waziristan. Reports say General Kayani warned America to focus on stabilising Afghanistan, instead of pushing Pakistan to attack militant groups.

Julia Gillard, Australia's prime minister, was forced to drop a controversial proposal to funnel the processing of people seeking asylum in her country through Malaysia. It is a big defeat for Ms Gillard, who only the day before had scored a success by pushing her equally controversial plan for a carbon tax though the lower house of Parliament. See article

China again accused the Dalai Lama of encouraging Tibetans to commit suicide. The latest claim came after the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader offered prayers for eight monks and a nun who have set themselves on fire to protest against Chinese rule in Tibetan parts of Sichuan province. China said the self-immolations were “terrorism in disguise”.

Hollande days

François Hollande, a mild-mannered former boss of the French Socialists, won the party's presidential primary vote. He will now go on to face Nicolas Sarkozy in next spring's presidential election. See article

Kurdish militants killed at least 24 Turkish soldiers in a number of co-ordinated attacks in Turkey's mainly Kurdish south-east. In response Turkish troops entered northern Iraq, hunting fighters from the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Kurdish violence in Turkey has intensified since a general election in June.

Officials from the European Union postponed a meeting with Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine's president. Yulia Tymoshenko, Mr Yanukovych's main rival, was recently handed a seven-year prison sentence in Kiev, which the EU says was politically motivated. After hinting that Ms Tymoshenko's sentence might be modified, Mr Yanukovych now says he will not bow to international pressure.

Beleaguered Greece was hit by a 48-hour general strike, as its parliament prepared to vote on a fresh round of spending cuts and tax rises. Although barely a week goes by without some form of unrest in Greece, unions said this was the biggest strike since the first Greek bail-out in May 2010. A big summit of European leaders is being held on October 23rd to discuss the euro-zone crisis.

Questions grew over Silvio Berlusconi's ability to hold his coalition together, after he only narrowly won a vote of confidence in the lower house of Italy's parliament. See article

Liam Fox resigned as Britain's defence secretary following a scandal involving a conflict of interest with a close friend. See article

A contentious contender

Venezuela's Supreme Court ruled that Leopoldo López, an opposition presidential candidate, cannot be sworn in if he wins the election. He is banned from holding public office because of allegations of corruption, which have never been proven in court. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has said the ban is illegal.

Student protests in Chile turned violent, as demonstrators set a bus on fire and threw petrol bombs and police responded with tear gas and water cannon. The protesters are demanding that the central government fully take over the education system.